CHAPTER AND VERSE by I. D. House

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 21, 1901

CHAPTER AND VERSE

By I. D. House

I. D. HOUSE

(Hokah, Minn.)

It is well known that the Bible was not divided into chapters and verses, with the exception of the Psalms, until a few centuries ago; but the reason for dividing it is probably not so well known.

The first attempt at dividing the Scriptures was by the Jews, at an early date. Later, they were divided by the Christians. We are indebted to Cardinal Hugo for the first concordance, and the present numbering of the chapters, which he completed about the middle of the thirteenth century. The division of the Old Testament into verses was made at a later date by a Jewish rabbi, named Isaac Nathan. Robert Stephens, a printer who died at Genoa in 1559, is said to have divided the New Testament into verses. The following on this subject is quoted from Kitto’s “History of the Bible:”—

“The carrying on of this work [Bible Commentary] gave him [Hugo] the occasion of inventing the first ‘Concordance’ that was made of the Scriptures,—that is, of the vulgar Latin Bible,—for, conceiving that such an index of all the words and phrases in the Bible would be of great use for the attaining of a better understanding of it, he projected a scheme for the making of such an index, and forthwith set a great number of the monks of his order, on the collecting of the words under their proper classes in every letter in the alphabet, in order to this design; and, by the help of so many hands, he soon brought it to what he intended. This work was afterward much improved. . . . But the whole intention of the work being for the finding of any word or passage in the Scriptures, to make it answer this purpose, the cardinal found it necessary, in the first place, to divide the book into sections, and the sections into other divisions, that by these he might better make the references, and more exactly point out in the index where any word or passage might be found in the text; and these sections are the chapters into which the Bible has ever since been divided.”

“For on the publishing of this concordance, the usefulness of it being immediately discerned, all were desirous to have it; and, for the sake of the use of it, they all divided their Bibles as Hugo had done; for the references in the ‘Concordance’ being made by these chapters and the subdivisions of them, unless their Bibles were so divided, too, the Concordance would be of no use to them.”